| Abstract: | This study addresses two potential problems when single-benchmark price weights are applied to commodity indicators to assess the official estimates of China’s industrial growth, i.e., the substitution bias and the constant value-added ratio given by a fixed input–output table. It introduces the 2002 and 2007 input–output tables and price weights in order to capture changes in a more market-based pricing and more liberal policy environment following China’s WTO entry. My new findings have not only lent a further and stronger support to the upward-bias hypothesis but also confirmed the Maddison–Wu conjecture (2008) that official estimates tend to smooth out high-growth volatility. By the alternative index, the impact of external shocks to Chinese industry appears to be more pronounced than the official index. |
